Hurray, Hurray, I'm Your Silver Lining

If every cloud has a silver lining, then this storm rolling in will make me a millionaire. Maybe I could reach up and grab each and every one of them and carefully lay them on the kitchen table, grab my wife’s fabric scissors, and gently trim the lining away.

I consider grabbing the scissors from her right now, but the way she’s waving them as she screams and hurls insults like tiny I.E.Ds makes me think they might end up in my brain rather than my left hand.

I say left hand, because I am left handed. I am in my own world. Her words wash over me, like the rolling surf of the cold grey sea. They drag the sand and the shells back and forward at their beck and call, but I am unmoveable, I am stoic.
I am willing our love to die.

“You bastard!” I am not a bastard, my father was called John and he was a great man, and a loving father. He used to take me fishing every weekend. I should call him when all this blows over.
“I hate you!” It didn’t say that in my birthday card last week… though maybe that awful shirt was a subliminal message.
“Are you even listening to me?” I am not, I am listening to The Beatles in my head.
“I want a divorce.”

I am afraid. Backtracking backpedalling backstroking moon walking.

“I’m sorry. How can I make it up to you?” I am spineless.
Whatever ‘it’ may be. I’ve been looking for ‘it’ for a year now. Maybe it’s hiding under the bed we no longer share. Maybe it’s hiding in the armpit beneath the cold shoulder. Maybe it’s hiding in the dirty motel rooms we frequent (not together) without our rings on.

Maybe ‘it’ doesn’t exist. Maybe she is making ‘it’ up to me. She looks so beautiful in the moment between rage and victory. Her smug face perfects her; maybe she should have been royalty. She certainly thinks she is. I used to worship her like she was. I am tired.

I am in my own world again. I watch on autopilot as I reach into my wallet and give her my credit card; the only one not yet maxed out. I watch on autopilot as she drives my car to buy a new dress to turn on her toy boy. I don’t even care. I am stoic, I am unmoveable. Her words wash over me, she is all the natural disasters rolled into one. The storm clouds are gone, but I can see them on the horizons. I can’t see their silver linings any more.

Maybe someone beat me to it. Maybe someone cut down the linings first. I hope they’re happy with their money. I hope they are happy with their lives. I hope they are happy with my damn silver linings.

I am afraid. Afraid of being alone. I am willing our love to die. I am willing me to die. I am willing her to die. The toaster is held over the bath. My foot is on the accelerator, the concrete shoes are by the door, the stool is moments from being kicked.

But I am just dreaming. What if she hated me? What if I hated her? What if the hate was buried so deep it wouldn’t surface for years, until we were too deeply invested to see past it? I wake up and roll over, she looks so beautiful when she sleeps, her mouth curved into a slight smile, her chest rising gently up and down. I love her, she loves me. But what if things change? I don’t want things to change.

I wonder how it doesn’t keep her up at night.

I look out the window, it’s a bright sunny morning. I can see the silver linings. I wonder if there is a ladder in all of the world long enough to let me climb and grab them, stuffing them in the wardrobe and saving them for a rainy day, just like my raincoat and rubber boots.

Save them for when she screams, “I hate you!” for when she accuses me of being fatherless, for when she accuses me of being homosexual or being impotent. I’ll walk calmly to the closet, and I’ll pull one out, gently gently.

Its light will fill the room, and I’ll show her all of the silver linings, how every bad has a good. And she’ll love me again, she’ll love me always, things will never change. I will sell them and buy her anything her heart desires. When she asks what I want to buy, what my heart desires…

A yacht? A jet? A flashy car? A solid gold toilet?

I’ll look her right in her two beautiful eyes and tell her, “You’re all my heart desires.” And I will mean it.